Learning to play guitar is definitely a serious business that you should take lightly

Learning to play guitar is definitely a serious business that you should take lightly. Once you have a little physical hands on experience with the guitar you can relax and make choices about what style of music you want to learn and how you want to learn it. Once you have learnt the basic chord shapes and how they can be moved up and down the fret board, you can experiment with strumming patterns if you get bored with that, you can start on learning a few finger picking patterns. You must never lose sight of the goal of personal satisfaction behind your musical efforts.

Part of learning to play guitar is, unfortunately, the wondering.

1. 鈥淲hich way of learning to play guitar is the best for me?鈥?
2. 鈥淗ow many ways of learning are there?鈥?
3. Are books the best source of guitar learning information? Or is it better to pick some of my favorite songs and concentrate on learning how to play them?

What makes learning guitar more confusing is the fact that everybody who learns seems quite happy to have taken the path that they took and, in hindsight, would not have done anything different. Anyway, maybe talking to friends who already have been through the learning journey would probably be a good start. Did they learn to play by starting on chords? Or scales? How do people feel about their abilities as a guitar player after a few years of fooling around in a non-disciplined way?

Many guitarists have made their way by watching and talking to friends and making use of the free tabs on the internet. Choosing tabs should be a fairly stress-free job if you are guided by your personal musical tastes but there could be a problem with learning from friends. If you have a bunch of friends or family members who think they know a thing or two about playing the guitar, you are talking to someone who may or may not be aware of their own limitations.

A guitar playing friend can show you how to play a chord or a riff but they will have only limited ability to provide you with the guidance you need to chart your own guitar learning path and to judge your own progress.

If you do take the unstructured route for learning guitar, you can always take a lesson or two from a professional teacher just to make sure you haven鈥檛 acquired too many bad habits and to help with charting a course for your guitar music progress.

One experience you could do well to share with a guitar teacher is learning from a printed guitar tutor. If you choose one of good guitar lesson books you already have a structured learning program and sharing the learning with an experienced guitarist who can add his own perspective to the info in the book.

The five essentials steps to getting started playing your guitar.

1. Sitting Position. In order for you to feel relaxed when sitting playing your guitar you need to adopt the correct sitting position. Take your guitar and ensure the guitar body is supported by your leg. Ensure you are sat at the edge of your chair and your back is straight but relaxed. Your guitar should be leaned back towards you slightly. Just doing this alone will be the start to make playing your guitar easier.

2. Standing Position. When standing playing the guitar you need to ensure it鈥檚 held securely and your body is relaxed. Take you guitar and put the strap over your shoulder. The strap should be adjusted so your guitar is positioned over your mid-body. Your left hand will be supporting the neck of the guitar and your right hand at the bridge of the guitar. These quick steps will ensure you are relaxed and have free control of the guitar.

3. Hand Position. In order not to cause strain on your wrist or thumb which could cause injury the hand position is vital. The wrist and hands should always be in a relaxed state to prevent strain. The thumb should never be placed too low on the neck. The fingers should be placed on the fret board making sure you do not need to stretch to play any on the strings.

4. Fretting. To ensure you press the strings on the fret board correctly here are some essential tips. Make sure you cut your fingernails as short nails are a must. Only the tips of your fingers should be used to press the strings. Ensure all strings sound clear and are not muted or buzzing.

5. Holding the Pick. The pick needs to be held in the correct way which is between the thumb and index fingers. If you are not holding the pick correctly you will not make the correct sound when playing the guitar.

You鈥檒l be soon playing the guitar on a regular basis. Playing the guitar in front of a crowd is not a pipe dream or only for those who are natural music players. Use these strategies and very soon you could be playing in your own band.